The state was supposed to impose a budget on the five-town Quabbin Regional School District on Dec. 1, but has deferred the action until tomorrow.

Oakham officials asked for the delay to explain to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education why the town cannot afford the amount of money being sought by the school, documents provided by the selectmen show.

New Braintree and Oakham officials and the Quabbin school superintendent recently wrote letters to the DESE about the budget problem.

Quabbin is the only public school system in the state without an operating budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

By law the DESE dictates a school budget by Dec. 1 if local officials fail to enact one. The Quabbin budget cannot take effect until at least four communities and the school board agree on a spending plan.

Two of the five towns — New Braintree and Oakham — and the regional school board have failed to reach agreement, creating the impasse and the pending state intervention.

In letters to state education officials, selectmen and finance committee members from the two communities invoked the spending caps mandated by Proposition 2-1/2. Increases in their school assessments are acceptable — provided they do not exceed 2.5 percent annually, the town officials said. They said the DESEhas no business expecting towns to increase school spending by more than 2.5 percent.

“On June 4, 2012, Oakham voters were asked to approve a school assessment 15.1 percent higher than in fiscal 2012. The voters did not approve this request, however, approved a 2 percent increase,” Oakham selectman and the finance committee wrote to the DESE in a Nov. 29 letter. The officials said a town meeting in October also rejected a 7.9 percent increase sought by the regional school board.

“The town has reduced its police force to all part-time officers and a part-time police chief in an effort to cope with our fiscal challenges,” the Oakham officials wrote.

Until recently, Oakham employed a full-time police chief and a full-time officer.

They also referred to Gov. Deval L. Patrick's recent statement that local aid to the 351 cities and towns must be chopped by $9 million to offset a projected $540 million budget deficit.

Out of the $225 million of executive branch reductions ordered by Gov. Deval Patrick, the DESE will absorb more than $21 million in cuts this fiscal year, Commissioner Mitchell D. Chester said in a memorandum last week to school superintendents. He said $11.5 million would be sliced from special education reimbursement, $5.25 million would be cut to transport homeless children, $2.5 million from the “pothole” discretionary spending account and $1 million each to charter school tuition and regional school transportation.

“The current economic conditions require that we all need to be trying to do more with less and the education system in Massachusetts needs to do likewise,” Oakham officials wrote in a second letter dated Dec. 6.

Quabbin superintendent Maureen M. Marshall's letter to the DESE says the district has made earnest attempts “to compromise with member towns.” Her letter shows the $31.3 million operating budget agreed to by Barre, Hardwick and Hubbardston this year, while 3.9 percent more than last year, is 4.3 percent less than the district's fiscal 2008 budget of $32.76 million. The Chapter 70 state aid allocated to the district — as a proportion of the total operating budget — has decreased overall by 17 percent from fiscal 2008.

The Quabbin school chief's letter to the DESE also questions claims made by Oakham officials that the town is financially strapped.

Ms. Marshall wrote that the Quabbin “administration has learned from the [state] Department of Revenue that the Town of Oakham has over $112,000 in excess” taxable levy capacity in fiscal 2013.

She wrote that the “DOR representative inquired as to why the town officials won't support the $76,346 in additional assessment.”

New Braintree selectmen told the DESE the town has a population of 1,000, with 400 homeowners, and that last year seven households were unable to pay their taxes. The selectmen said this year 15 cannot pay their property taxes.

The New Braintree selectmen stated in their Nov. 29 letter to the DESE that the “QRSD administration uses bullying tactics to threaten the reduction of core programs if parents do not attend town meetings and vote to support the QRSD budget.” The letter does not provide examples of the “bullying tactics.”

A coalition of selectmen and finance committee members from the district towns have met a half dozen times this year.

At a meeting Thursday — consisting mostly of Oakham and New Braintree officials along with a Hubbardston finance committee member and Hardwick selectmen chairman Eric Vollheim — “Quabbin District Coalition” members discussed their concerns with school spending, with some harshly criticizing Ms. Marshall. No Barre officials attended the meeting. School officials were not invited to the Dec. 6 coalition meeting, Quabbin school board chairman Mark Brophy said in an interview; none was present.

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